Control, 2010 – 2012

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The paintings made between 2010 and 2012 were not linked directly, but in a certain way they share the same notion of control. They are concerned to display the effects of external control over individuals and situations. The crowds stirred up by political demagogues; the women stuck in a basement during a bombing; the pale skin of a junky after a period of substance abuse.

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Anxiety, 2011

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Dressed in pink and yellow sweaters, these men appear to attack a hidden enemy, stepping into the blue haze. They could have been random guests at a party moments earlier, but they are ready to fight now with a belt and a stick as weapons. There’s a sense of fear for the unknown, for aggression towards anything out of the ordinary that seems to live up quite easily.

Based on a picture of a military HQ in Iraq during the second Gulf War, Headquarters shows a desk full of computers, phones and bottled water, people working, making calls and typing. Maps on the wall are landscapes destructed to the point of abstraction. There`s a satellite view from Baghdad after the bombing. An aggressive, depthless red on the background contrasts with the bright green clothing of the clerks, like a singular uniform.

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Headquarters / 180 x 200 cm / oil on canvas / 2011

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Shelter, 2012

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A family is competing with their fate as darkness is closing in. Based on the composition of Trata de Blancas – Human Trafficking, a paintings by Spanish impressionist Joaquín Sorrola, Shelter recalls a basement-like room with women wrapped in blankets hiding out. By the time of this painting the attrocities of the civil war in Syria were reaching the headlines.

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Shelter (after Joaquin Sorolla) – 2012, 180 x 140 cm, oil on canvas

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Substance, 2010

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The image used for Substance comes from a picture of a drug addicted girl. The change her skin had undergone and the look in her eyes told her story very well.

Neighbours is a small collection of portraits. It displays a right-wing mob that came to scare off a community of refugees in the early nineties. The crowd was made up of balding seniors in knitted sweaters, teenagers looking for kicks, and militant skinheads, all out to deny a group of newcomers their more most basic human needs. Political demagogues had convinced the population these refugees would become more privileged as ordinary people, resulting in a rascist mob of people from all walks of life that set fire to a shelter.